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October 4, 2009

G162: Red Sox 12, Spiders 7

Boston hit five home runs, including two from J.D. Drew and a grand slam by Jed Lowrie. Dustin Pedroia and Alex Gonzalez hit the other dongs.

Jacoby Ellsbury stole his 70th base of the year, George Kottaras came off the bench and singled twice, and David Ortiz singled in two runs in the first, giving him 99 RBI. Jason Bay led the team with 119 RBI.

On each scorecard, I put the number of the game in the top right corner. Every Opening Day, I write a "1" and think it will take so long to get to "162". When you step back, 162 games is a ridiculously long season. Yet here we are.

The 2009 regular season is nearly complete and the Red Sox are one of the eight teams to be playing in the playoffs (for the sixth time in the last seven years). However, we still don't know who one of those eight teams will be.

On the morning of September 7, the Twins were a season-worst 7 GB. They have gone 15-4 since September 13, while the Tigers -- who have allowed three more runs (736) than they have scored (733) this year for an 80-81 Pythag -- have won only 10 of their last 25 games.

So the Red Sox will fly to Anaheim after a workout at Fenway on Monday, but they don't know if their series will begin on Wednesday or Thursday. (Indeed, they might not know until Tuesday night; a possible tie-breaking game between Detroit and Minnesota would be played Tuesday afternoon.)

And while the media's talk of players wanting to hit .300 and get 100 RBI because .298 and 99 doesn't look as impressive is silly -- when really, over a long season, it's the same thing -- I admit that I did not want to finish double-digits behind the MFY. And being 8 GB now, we won't.

And speaking of Pythag, the Red Sox "should" be only 1 GB the MFY (93-68 to 94-67), but the Yankees have out-performed their expected W-L by eight games. Grrrr.....

But the real excitement today is the culmination of the W-L contest. There will be no tie-breakers here.

142 comments:

MFY probably cheering for the tigers, as the twins seem to be a team hitting their stride. MFY also probably cheering for a tuesday afternoon tiebreaker, so they can play wednesday night in new york. if detroit wins, i think MFY will easily take that series. not so much with minnesota. i would love to see them bounced in the first round. twins just completely obliterate sabathia/burnett/toucan/jtc and smash them to bits. mmmmm.

i say both teams win - verlander shuts down the pale sox and the twins rough up hochever to set the stage for a tuesday tiebreaker (porcello/baker).

WEEI: "Manny Delcarmen was involved in a car accident on Route 93 on his way to Fenway Park prior to Saturday's game ... Delcarmen was driving his Hummer which hit a guardrail and he suffered back and neck pain. He received treatment during the game."

Well, it started with me reading about galaxies and stars and stuff, which is directly related to the astrophysics course I'm taking, but endless link-clicking on Wikipedia eventually got me to dark matter and then particle physics and string theory.

I'm not a big fan of string theory. Anything that needs 10 dimensions to work properly seems flawed to me.

OB started singing Drew's praises, then managed to twist it up into a backhanded compliment. "...The numbers haven't been to everybody's liking, certainly, but when he's healthy - when he feels like he's healthy...", then goes on to say Drew is a natural athlete, implying he has no work ethic.

OB: Everyone who plays professional sports is a natural athlete. So that's irrelevant.